Understanding Extreme Nearshore Wave Events through Studies of Coastal Boulder Transport

2013-2014年，爱尔兰阿兰群岛上发生了异常严重的风暴，搬运了非常大的巨石（50-430公吨）。这些巨石有的在海平面以上几十米，有的在内陆几百米。本项目将结合气象资料、数值模拟和物理模拟，在一个按比例的波浪槽中对这些巨石进行分析，以详细描述波浪能量与重物运动之间的关系。这项研究将训练本科生和研究生地球科学家分析海岸侵蚀。来自爱尔兰实地地点的学校团体将作为公民科学家参与该项目，结果将传达给专业组织和当地社区。该项目将建立风暴波浪功率与内陆巨石移动程度之间的预测关系，作为风暴破坏力的指标，这将对沿海社区、政策制定者和沿海工程师有价值，作为长期沿海灾害评估的一部分。该项目是美国-爱尔兰研究与发展伙伴关系项目的一部分，由美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。该项目的技术描述该项目有三个目标，将通过与爱尔兰的研究人员合作来实现。第一个目标是绘制爱尔兰阿兰群岛的地形图和测深图，从水下传感器收集压力数据，这些传感器将实时监测海浪高度，并继续监测海岸巨石的年复一年的运动。第二是对沿海地区的波浪高度增加进行数值模拟，以了解风暴波是如何被放大到可以在很高的高度和距离上向内陆移动非常大的质量的程度。第三个目标是创建一个结合现场测量和数值模型的缩放波槽实验，以提供波浪冲击海岸线时发生的物理过程的额外约束。这种综合方法将提供近岸高能过程的准确评估，可用于预测特定海况和海岸水深测量的波能近岸传播。

A non-technical description of the project that explains the significance and importanceExceptionally severe storms in 2013-2014 transported very large boulders (50-430 metric tons) on Ireland's Aran Islands. Some of these boulders were tens of meters above sea level and some were hundreds of meters inland. This project will analyze these boulders together with meteorological information, numerical modeling, and physical modeling in a scaled wave tank, to detail the relationships between wave energy and the movement of heavy objects.This research will train undergraduate and graduate earth scientists in analysis of coastal erosion. School groups from the field locations in Ireland will be involved in the project as citizen scientists, and the results will be communicated to both professional organizations and local communities. The project will establish a predictive relationship between storm-wave power and the inland extent of boulder movement that can serve as an index of the destructive power of storms, which will be of value to coastal communities, policy makers, and coastal engineers as part of long-term coastal hazard assessment. This project is part of the US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership program and it is co-funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering.A technical description of the projectThe project has three goals, which will be carried out via collaboration with researchers in Ireland. The first goal is to map topography and bathymetry of Ireland's Aran Islands, to collect pressure data from submerged sensors that will monitor wave heights in real time, and to continue monitoring year-to-year movement of coastal boulders. The second is to numerically model wave height augmentation in the coastal zone, to understand how storm waves are amplified to the point where they can move very large masses at great heights and distances inland. The third goal is to create a scaled wave-tank experiment combining the field measurements and numerical models, to provide additional constraints on physical processes happening as waves impact the shoreline. This integrated approach will provide an accurate assessment of near-shore high-energy processes that could be used to forecast inshore propagation of wave energy for specific sea states and coastal bathymetry.